


Space Between, The

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Episode Tag, F/M, Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-03-26
Updated: 2005-03-26
Packaged: 2019-05-15 19:55:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,852
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14796911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: Post Ep for 'The Fall's Going to Kill You'. Two friends, a bar, beer and a jukebox.





	Space Between, The

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

**The Space Between**

**by: Francesca**

**Pairing(s):** CJ/Sam  
**Rating:** TEEN  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own the characters but am just using them for a while; I'll put them back when I'm done. In the words of Sam Seaborn "Good writers borrow from other writers. Great writers steal from them outright." I'm not borrowing or stealing, just sneaking some use while no one's looking.  
**Summary:** Post Ep for ‘The Fall’s Going to Kill You’. Two friends, a bar, beer and a jukebox.  
**Author's Note:** The Tavern on the Hill actually exists…though I have no idea what it’s actually like. http://members.aol.com/dchappy/capitalhill.html#hawkanddove 

The White House: Night 

He closes the door to the Oval Office and walks slowly across the room, one foot in front of the other, carefully, as though if he doesn’t focus he might fall. 

He walks unseeing through the empty halls, confused thoughts running through his mind. He can hear Toby’s voice “I'll be here in the office when you're done”. Hear the President declare “I have MS”, see Leo standing there quietly watching….it’s all blurring together in his mind. He doesn’t want to go back to his office, doesn’t want to talk to Toby, and doesn’t want to see Josh. He stops at a deserted desk and picks up a ‘phone. Once a message is sent to a particular pager he keeps walking, right out the door, his keys, his wallet are in his trouser pockets and he doesn’t care about the cold, doesn’t notice it. His father lied, Toby lied while saying “friends are honest with each other” and now the President and Leo. He stops at the main gates when his pager buzzes briefly, he checks the message and finds it a response to his and then does something that would have been unthinkable half an hour earlier, he switches it off and keeps walking, one foot in front of the other. 

Tavern on the Hill : Night 

She’s there in a booth in a corner and he sees her before she sees him. There’s already a bottle on the table in front of her, and he knows that although they don’t acknowledge what’s between them she is the only person he wants to see just now. He places an order at the bar and feeds the jukebox before walking to the table. He tells himself he’ll give up, give this up, but he realises he’s more likely to stop breathing than he is caring for this woman. 

She looks up from the table as he approaches and he can see the same shell shocked look on her face as he knows he’s wearing. There’s the same look in her eyes and part of him doesn’t want to talk, doesn’t want to drink just wants to be some where he can hold her for a while. But they need the words…. 

He looks at the bottle she’s slowly peeling the label from, at the unused glass beside it and puts down his beer on the table and collapses onto the seat opposite her. There are no pleasantries they know each other too well, and besides when the sky has fallen in ‘how was your day?’ is a redundant question 

She doesn’t have to ask him if he knows the truth, he leans back against the high back of the booth as though he hasn’t slept for a week. If you know him, know him well, know where to look then it’s in his eyes, his posture – in the way he tilts the bottle back and takes a deep gulp and swallows. If she had them here now Josh, Leo, Toby, even the President, she could shout and scream at them, rail at them and not for herself but for putting that look into Sam’s blue eyes. Even though she knows what’s between them under the surface cannot be a ‘thing’ she reaches out a hand but stops short of touching him, she simply rests her fingers on the table and lets him make the decision if he wants the contact. He swiftly covers it with his own and they sit in their own silence, while around them the business of the bar ebbs and flows, no one notices them in the corner booth and that’s why they come here. 

His fingers gently rub across her wrist and she looks up from her rapt contemplation of their intertwined hands to his face. She can see in his face he’s ready to talk….she’s already started a tab with the bar staff and she catches the eye of a waiter who comes over and takes their order, when he leaves again and two more bottles of beer sit on the table dripping pools of cold water he finally speaks. 

“What do you think?” not how do you feel, that’s a more complex question, one that he won't ask in a crowded room, that’s a question he’ll ask her later if he’s somewhere they can hold each other where no one can see. 

She laughs then and it’s not quite a bitter laugh, but it has none of her usual warm humour, and he hates that that has been taken from her. 

She can only tell him what she told Josh earlier “They’re are like Butch and Sundance peering over the edge of a cliff to the boulder-filled rapids 300 feet below, thinking you better not jump 'cause there's a chance you might drown. The President has this disease and has been lying about it, and they are worried that the polling might make us look bad? It's the fall that's gonna kill ya! It’s the fall that will kill us, will take everything we’ve achieved and make it worthless” 

He squeezes her hand, and it’s not enough not for him or for her. And he knows she’s right, every hard fought victory, everything they’ve done, everything they’re yet to do, none of it will matter. And that’s why he, Toby, Josh and C.J have worked miracles over the last four and a half years because they believed, because they felt they could make a difference and that what they did would matter. He thinks about Josh after the shooting, C.J after the execution, himself writing speeches and States of the Union in limousines on the way to deliver them. He remembers Josh pointing at his grin through the glass of a Gage Whitney meeting room and thinks it can’t be for nothing….because he can’t let it be. And he knows she can’t either. They’ve sacrificed too much, compromised, shed more than their fair share of blood, sweat and tears, and he wonders if he has the words for how he feels right now. 

The Space Between  
The tears we cry  
Is the laughter keeps us coming back for more  
The Space Between  
The wicked lies we tell  
And hope to keep safe from the pain 

She looks at him quizzically, “One of your songs? I saw you feed the jukebox when you came in”. 

He nods, sometimes they both use other’s words, music for when they’re not sure if they can say what they’re feeling. As though if they use proxies they maintain deniability of the ‘thing’ they can never become. They do this, snatch space between the moments that not even their closest friends know they share…. 

“I don’t know what to do” he says finally and she nods agreement. “I don’t know how we can salvage this, how to make it right. I can’t even….” He trails off in frustration and takes another pull at his beer bottle. 

The unfinished sentence hangs there for a moment, there’s too many ways they could finish it. To many roads they can’t travel. 

“Do you think we’ll be a ‘gate’ ?” 

He looks at her puzzled, but only for a moment ‘till his tired mind makes the connections. “I guess so. I mean isn’t it traditional?” 

She thinks about the Press Corps, the personalities within it and how it reacts to mistruths and misdirection. “The longer it stays covered over, the worse it gets. The longer he’s silent the worse the press will make it when he speaks”. They can both visualise how it could be and near identical looks of horror flit across their faces. 

“C.J” he says quietly, she leans across the table to hear him “this is bad on so many levels” 

She laughs then, and he’s relived to hear it sounds more like her, “Oh Sam” she says,. 

He looks into her eyes then, and takes a risk, but he’s just discovered that the solid ground he though he was standing on is in fact only thin ice, another step on it won't kill him, not when the whole lot could break at any time. “Want to come back to mine? We can talk better and I’ve got some beer in the fridge, and there’s still an unopened bottle of Highland Park in the back of one of my kitchen cupboards”. 

She looks at him, she knows what he’s offering and what it could mean if she accepts, she also knows if she turns him down it may never be offered again. 

The Space Between  
Where you're smiling high  
Is where you'll find me if I get to go  
The Space Between  
The bullets in our firefight  
Is where I'll be hiding, waiting for you  
The rain that falls  
Splash in your heart  
Ran like sadness down the window into...  
The Space Between  
Our wicked lies  
Is where we hope to keep safe from pain 

“Tonight” she says quietly, slowly. 

He looks at her, “In the calm before the storm?” he allows himself a rueful grin “and in the space between”. 

She knows then, knows what her answer will be and wonders what this will mean, and she realises that next to the President’s MS, the misleading of a country by a lie of omission from an honest man, it’s a small thing, such a small thing to worry over. 

“Sounds like a great idea”.He looks as though he has misheard her, just for a moment and then when he realises he didn’t a smile breaks out, the first she has seen from him and it actually reaches his eyes. 

They finish their bottles and he releases her hand so she can pay the bar tab, but when she returns to where he stands waiting for her he takes her hand again, they leave the bar and he hails a cab. They climb into the back and Sam gives the driver his Georgetown address and they sit in the back seat, not Press Secretary and Deputy Communications director, not tonight, tonight it’s just Sam and C.J holding hands in the space between. 

Take my hand  
'Cause we're walking out of here  
Oh, right out of here  
Love is all we need here 

The Space Between  
What's wrong and right  
Is where you'll find me hiding, waiting for you  
The Space Between  
Your heart and mine  
Is the space we'll fill with time  
The Space Between... 


End file.
